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Officials install nets to protect tourists from Portuguese man-of-war
By The Nation

KOH SAMUI: -- Officials on Wednesday installed nets at a popular beach on Koh Samui to protect tourists from poisonous Portuguese man-of-war.

Officials from the Marine and Coastal Resources Department’s Chumphon-based marine resources research centre for central Gulf of Thailand provinces joined with Koh Samui Municipality and the Koh Samui Tourism Association to install the nylon nets in the sea off Lamai Beach.

The nets are 100 metres long and seven metres deep.

Thanyaporn Ajalawichakul, an official with the Chumphon research centre, said Samui was the first location where the department had installed the protective nets.

The nets will be in place for four months and officials will check them every 15 days.

Thanyaporn said Portuguese man-of-war came near the shore especially in June and many tourists had been injured by the marine hydrozoa.

The department decided to start using the nets at the beach as a pilot projects after a tourist was killed by an animal recently.

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I'll be very interested to see what occurs with this pilot project. I swim most days (and it is a major reason why I'm here) and have for 20 years off and on. I have to say that on Mae Nam beach I have only seen jelly fish a handful of times, and have never been stung.

I also question the timing. According to all the locals I talk with, the jelly fish are only really prevalent during the rainy season (Oct-Dec). Perhaps in Lamai/south of the island the season for them is a bit different? Different currents at different times/locations of the year? Anybody have an answer for this?

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I'll be very interested to see what occurs with this pilot project. I swim most days (and it is a major reason why I'm here) and have for 20 years off and on. I have to say that on Mae Nam beach I have only seen jelly fish a handful of times, and have never been stung.

I also question the timing. According to all the locals I talk with, the jelly fish are only really prevalent during the rainy season (Oct-Dec). Perhaps in Lamai/south of the island the season for them is a bit different? Different currents at different times/locations of the year? Anybody have an answer for this?

Looking forward to any data received!

Off to the beach!

Box jelly fish are on Samui all year round. They get the box jelly fish confused with the Portuguese man'o'war. Unbelievable. Hope that this is just a case of bad reporting.

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Box jelly fish are on Samui all year round. They get the box jelly fish confused with the Portuguese man'o'war. Unbelievable. Hope that this is just a case of bad reporting.

Of course it is bad reporting. Man'o'wars float only on the surface so would obviously not require a 7 metre drop. Nice looking net, similar to those deployed around North Queensland for the box jellyfish season, right in front of Lamai Wanta resort.

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Be interesting to see how many they manage to trap, it was previously suggested that there was more risk during the rainy season but as one of the articles below states thus far there is insufficient information to draw any conclusions as to the seasonality.

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Be interesting to see how many they manage to trap, it was previously suggested that there was more risk during the rainy season but as one of the articles below states thus far there is insufficient information to draw any conclusions as to the seasonality.

I carry a spare bottle of vinegar in the car in case one of us is unfortunate enough to get stung when we go to the beach.

Many thanks for the links in your post (If you are reading this, take 5 minutes and have a look at them!). The first is excellent, the second not as good but still appreciated.

At the beach where I swim the hotel has put up a first aid box with two large bottles of vinegar. If you have a regular swimming spot, perhaps see if there is a spot for a permanent place to do the same.

And, in spite of the above, I too have a bottle of vinegar with my swimming stuff.

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I'll be very interested to see what occurs with this pilot project. I swim most days (and it is a major reason why I'm here) and have for 20 years off and on. I have to say that on Mae Nam beach I have only seen jelly fish a handful of times, and have never been stung.

I also question the timing. According to all the locals I talk with, the jelly fish are only really prevalent during the rainy season (Oct-Dec). Perhaps in Lamai/south of the island the season for them is a bit different? Different currents at different times/locations of the year? Anybody have an answer for this?

Looking forward to any data received!

Off to the beach!

I've never hear about Portuguese man-of-war by Samui, but often read that they were around Phuket; the jelly-fish we hear about here, is the Box Jelly Fish, and they are sometimes reported being seen, and even a few accidents, during the raining season.

However, October last year I saw this fellow at Maenam Beach – it's doesn't look like "box" – is that something to be afraid of..?

Edit: It was quite big, which may not be clear from the photo, about 40-50 cm in diameter...

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An opinion based on your photo, if you had took a sample I could have DNA tested it for you khunPer

Thanks for your kind offer, but I was not in the mood of tingling with that thing's tentacles, so we have to solve the mystery without the otherwise convincing DNA-method.

The weird jelly-thing looked like the so-called "Red fire man" (rød brandmand) from my childhood's Danish beaches – "fire", Danish "brand", refers to that the sting "burns on the skin", "man" or Danish "mand" could refer to only male species, mening they can reproduce without use of females. I remember it as something really nasty to get in close contact with (talk from extremely bad experience), but probably not that poisoning after all for grownups.

Google is my friend, and our "Red fire man" has an English name, "Lion's mane jellyfish". It's a very Northern, almost Nordic "lion", which is »common in the English Channel, Irish Sea, North Sea and in western Scandinavian waters south to Kattegat and Øresund. It may also drift in to the south-western part of the Baltic Sea (where it cannot breed due to the low salinity).« It's also known as the "Giant jellyfish" and »is the largest known species of jellyfish. Its range is confined to cold, boreal waters of the Arctic, northern Atlantic, and northern Pacific Oceans.«

OMG, "giant" means giant: "The largest recorded specimen found, washed up on the shore of Massachusetts Bay in 1870, had a bell with a diameter of 2.3 metres (7 ft 6 in) and tentacles 37.0 m (121.4 ft) long."

But here comes the interesting part: »Similar jellyfish, which may be the same species, are known to inhabit seas near Australia and New Zealand.«

Could it – even without DNA testing – be a Lion's mane jellyfish or similar thing..?

If so, then Wikipedia says:
»Sting and human contact
Most encounters cause temporary pain and localized redness. In normal circumstances, and in healthy individuals, their stings are not known to be fatal. Vinegar can be used to deactivate the nematocysts, but due to the large number of tentacles medical attention is recommended after exposure.

On July 21, 2010, around 150 people are thought to have been stung by the remains of a lion's mane jellyfish that had broken up into countless pieces in Rye, New Hampshire, in the United States. Considering the size of the species, it is possible that this mass incident was caused by a single specimen.«

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

And just for reference, a Box jellyfish is supposed to look like this at Wikipedia...

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